Thursday, April 1, 2010

Home for the weekend: Vita mix and asparagus

Mabel and I were in PA last weekend and found that my parents had bought a new Vita-Mix. Awesome!

We've wanted one of these for forever, or at least since Mabel went through a smoothie phase in med school. We made several icy honey dew, watermelon, and Orange Julius (we like it with egg whites) drinks over the weekend and have decided that were going to buy one of our own using saved up spare change jars. Although I wonder how the Vita-Mix compares to the Blendtec.

Over the weekend I also tried to reproduce an asparagus and mushroom dish that we had at Aburiya Kinnosuke a few weeks ago.

Aburiya Kinnosuke used green asparagus, King mushrooms, and roe. I used white asparagus and Portobellos because that's what we had. Both are all good.

2 comments:

Congratulations on your match (Christine told me)! You guys should definitely get a Vita-Mix to celebrate your match. Just ask Christine to buy one for you. That’s what family are for. Hahahaa

I have a Vita-Mix and a BlendTec. I couldn’t resist their presentations at Costco. We make a lot of smoothies throughout the year. I have made smoothies on both machines side by side. They both work the same.

BlendTec has a higher horsepower than the Vita-Mix. The BlendTec has 3 peak horse power with 1500 watts. The Vita-Mix has 2+ horse power and 1380 watts. You seriously cannot tell the difference. They were both able to grind garbanzo beans, dried corn, and avocado pits (blend on high with 1 – 2 cups of water for 30 seconds – 1 minute) well.

The BlendTec’s height is shorter so the blender will sit underneath your counter. The Vita-Mix is taller so unless you have a newer model home, it will not sit underneath the counter. You have to store the top part next to the bottom part on your counter. No big deal, but it takes up more counter space… and looks odd. Both their containers hold 64 ounces and are made of polycarbonate.

I think the BlendTec is better looking (looks prettier) than the Vita-Mix. It looks more feminine and it’s more streamlined with the touchpad buttons. The Vita-Mix looks like it’s always looked from the beginning (they never changed their design) so it still looks very commercial-kitchen-like and archaic. It’s got real buttons rather than a touchpad. I rather like the buttons on the Vita-Mix more though since I’ve had touchpads that failed on me (my old Cuisinart and Kitchen-Aid blenders).

The price for a BlendTec and Vita-Mix are the same at Costco.

With all that in mind, which one do I like better? The Vita-Mix. It’s like my All-Clad pots. They’re works of art.